PD for
trial teachers
On this page, you can find a summary of the content for the two days of full-cohort professional development.
Outline of the research
Mastering Maths approach
Mastering Maths lessons (Here you will find a summary of the design of the lessons, titles and rationales for all ten lessons and links to the full lesson plans and resources)
Lesson study
Here you will find an introduction to Lesson Study and a description of each step of the Lesson Study Cycle, with an explanation of how this has been adapted for use in the Mastering Maths research study.
Lessons 11 and 12
Lessons 11 and 12 are used within the professional development to exemplify the mastering maths approach.
Two Desmos activities replicate the approach taken within the professional development face to face sessions.
Lesson 11: Factors and multiples
Lesson 12: Area and volume
Closing the lessons
In many lessons, it is noticeable that teachers may leave things unresolved from the point of view of the students. In Mastering Maths lessons this may be because it has been something of an achievement to get students collaborating and working on mathematics. Why would you want to stop them?
When the students have worked on the main pair-work task, they will want to know if they are correct, but is more important to discuss approaches to solving the types of problems that students have been working on – such as the representations that are most useful – rather than the solution(s) to the problem(s). Above all, teachera should try to orchestrate a whole-class discussion that draws on everyone's thinking. Discussion of how to solve the problem(s) is very important - and needs time - and will work with student thinking and summarise collaborative thinking. In early trials of lessons it seemed that the teacher needed something like a quarter of an hour to close the lesson.
Planing for this part of the lesson is difficult because teachers need to know where students have got to and work with that at the end of the lesson. However, teachers can prepare for it by thinking about where they think the students in each class might have got to with each particular lesson after the time they have. Importantly, they should think about where in the lesson they will have access to information and students' thinking that they might be able to draw on to inform a whole-class discussion. In the close of the lesson the teacher can leave nothing to chance by pre-planning for lesson closure "in the moment". This does require the teacher to have really understood the way in which the classroom task and activity engage the students in working with important mathematical concepts. They might use these questions to help them with their planning:
What is it that you expect students to have learned mastered?
Where in the lesson can you get information that will help you structure the closing phase?